A "A Night at the Opera” is one of The Bay Citizen's first experiments in "Citizen Journalism."
Part of The Bay Citizen’s mission to build and engage in the community around us. And so we've teamed up with the San Francisco Opera to be their “online media sponsor” for “Opera in the Ballpark,” which is happening on Friday.
The San Francisco Opera is getting attention for its larger-than-life production of "Aida," but what about what happens behind the stage? | CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE COVERAGE
On Thursday, our crew of citizen journalists and our photographer for the evening, Russel Daniels, headed to the War Memorial Opera House where the San Francisco Opera was performing "Aida." We spent more than four hours there, but I can't tell you a thing about the show. That’s because we spent our time behind the scenes, where I learned some interesting tidbits:
There's a hospital in the basement of the opera house.
They still rent old opera glasses.
The opera house has one of the last elevator operators in San Francisco, and his name is James Padover.
Another thing I learned: People who work at the opera wear a lot of hats. As "Aida" was about to start, Micah Standley, left, was upstairs surrounded by opera scores. Standley is the Opera’s “publications editor” by day, but at night, he helps the people who videotape the opera read the score so they know where to shoot.
If you don't have time to experience the entire evening with us, I'd like to point you to a few of the really special moments. We videotaped opera star Dolora Zajick warming up offstage just before the curtain was going up. And when the curtain closed? We shot a charmingly candid video of music director Nicola Luisotti, who was exuburant but brain-dead and hungry. Enjoy a night at the opera.
Jess Perry is the SF Opera's budget manager by day and in the evening, he's in the chorus.
"Singing is my first love," says Perry, whose first role in an opera was as a priest in Aida.
Perry says the most relaxing part of performance night is sitting in the make-up chair.
The most challenging part of tonight's performance? Not tripping in his costume, which has a hooped skirt. "You can't see your feet so the challenge is walking without falling down," Perry says.
During the evening, the basement serves as one of our main thoroughfares. It's also the place where musicians practice and chorus members find peace, as you'll see later.
We're in the camera room with Calvin Roberts, Michael Santy, Ray Gilberti, Gerry Garocki, Chris Dulmage and Douglas Hunt. They're joking around, but in some 25 minutes they'll be in the zone broadcasting the show live.
"We're like robots running robots in here," Hunt jokes. But what happens when something unpredictable happens -- say an actor exits the stage left instead of right? "Everything goes really fast, and sometimes it's challenging," says Hunt, "but you always have that extra technical millisecond."
It's 10 minutes until the show starts and the stagehands are milling about backstage. Stage manager Rachel Henneberry steps into place and starts making calls, "Ladies and gentlemen, it's 10 minutes please until places for Act One."
Their heads have been painted, they've hit the dressing room and now, back to makeup.
The opera is almost about to start and we see mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick warming up. Zajick plays Amneris, daughter of the King of Egypt, one of the main roles in Aida.
It's often the case that professional classical musicians and singers don't like performing unexpectedly for video. They get self-conscious and a little paranoid that some random recording will capture them on a bad day and history will judge them unfairly. And so, it was really gracious of Dolora Zajick to let us tape her when she was warming up in the hallway offstage.
With all the glittter and glamour upstairs, it's a little discombobulating to see a regular ol' staff lounge, complete with three vending machines and a ping-pong table.
